Five Similar Gardens
by Mariagoner
Summary: The beginning, middle and end of an affair, as seen through five steps. Because mistresses are strange creatures and an emperor can rule everything while his own heart runs away from him. Features Larsa X Penelo and for Mithrigil's Swansong series.


For **Mithrigil**, as a present to commemorate the ending of the **Schwanengesang Series**. And also, because the scenario she came up for Larsa and Penelo was too interesting to _not_ dabble on with! If you're not familiar with the series, you might want to read her story **Erlkonig **to see the basic story of Larsa and Penelo. This is merely made to fill in the gaps left there...

And comments, corrections and criticism are, as always, completely welcome and loved! After all, a little encouragement never fails to add a bit of inspiration...

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**Title: Five Similar Gardens**

**Fandom: Final Fantasy XII**

**Series: Meant to Work Within Mithrigil's Schwanengesang Series**

**Characters/Pairings: Larsa/Penelo**

**Rating: PG to R**

**Summary: The beginning, middle and end of an affair, as seen through five different steps. Because mistresses are strange creatures and an emperor can rule everything while his own heart runs away from him.**

**Note: This follows the Stagesoflove challenge on LJ, if you were wondering what the 'stages' were about.**

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**Stage 1: Attraction: What He Draws in the Margins.  
**

When first he had drawn Penelo's profile in the margins of his note-paper, Larsa had been not quite fourteen and not quite a man, though his childhood had already spent the last few months slipping irretrievably through his fingers.

It had been almost… accidental, the first instance it had occurred. Certainly, it hadn't been in his intentions to sit down one day and shirk work in order to narrow his eyes and do nothing but Penelo's gentle face and laughing eyes and warm, cheering smile. It had only been a moment's need for respite from the usual tedious round of politics that likely made him concentrate on letting him whimsy flower for a minute. And somehow, that moment was all he needed before he had stirred to find Penelo scribbled all over what ought to have been something entirely else.

At first, it hadn't been anything unusual to him. Even as they had lived, his guardians had always marveled at his little known but still apt artistic talents, Drace in particular being fond of asking him to render himself in her arms as well as his youthful years allowed.

(Gabranth, Larsa knew, had kept those childish scribbles at the bottom drawer of the desk in his private chambers for the rest of his natural life.)

And whenever he was besieged by work, Larsa knew his mind had a habit of turning to stray diversions in order to burn away his stray energy until he was ready to sit back down again and concentrate on what needed to be done. Sometimes that took the form of a difficult training lesson but, more often than not, it took the form of notes and reminders or even scribbles of the places and people in his life. So there mere fact that that he had drawn Penelo absently a few times should not have meant anything at all.

But what he had drawn in particular, and _how_ he had drawn her, and _why_…

Because it was not enough that he had drawn her smiling in that ridiculously open way that could make him flush at first sight. It was not enough that he had pictured her in the same white gown she had worn the last time he had seen her, on the eve of Queen Ashelia's coronation where he had the distinct pleasure of attempting not to step on her small feet for over half an hour. It was not enough that he had imagined her with her golden hair falling freely down her shoulders, as it had only once for him in all the time he had known her.

In the end, it was simply enough that he had drawn her with her small, callused fingers entwined with those of another pair of hands, with the same hands that had drawn her in the first place and that now traced the delicate lines of her bright bird's beauty with a trembling, ungloved touch.

He had drawn her just as he wanted her… and that had been the first time he had realized that she had inexplicably altered something for him-- something _in_ him-- always and ever afterwards.

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**Stage 2: Romance: Absence Makes the Heart Grow Curious.**

The first time Larsa had sent the hounds of his empire after Penelo, he had promised himself he was doing it out of love.

But even then, he had known that he was lying to himself. It wasn't love that made him chase the scent of her all over Ivalice as soon as her last letter had been late by over a month once more. It wasn't tenderness that allowed him to bribe her fellow sky pirates to understand more of her plans for future heists and draws. It wasn't loyalty that had made him sign the forms that authorized investigators within the 9th Bureau to try and learn everything possible about her.

It was for reasons so much less endearing. It was for reasons that, if he were still the young boy he had been and not the desperate man he was becoming, he would have been ashamed of harboring in himself.

But he wasn't and yet he was and the first time he sent the hounds of his empire chasing after her, he had been fifteen years old and in love. He had been mad about her and hurt that she didn't know and pained at the fact that she'd turn him down even if he did tell her and ready to fall apart at the fact that their friendship, like so many other things in the word, was already starting to unravel in a way he could not heal at all.

In truth, so much of his life had been driven to the care and cultivation of things that seemed ineffably bound to alter in ways he hated but could not disrupt. The dissolution of his family, the change of his guardians, the forging of his heavy empire… all of it seemed to be ever-changing elements that never quite hardened into simple ease and normality in the disarray that usually served as his life. Politics, work, information, empire…

Penelo and the warm, fond letters she sent him almost every month had, for almost two years, been the one unchanging constant in his life.

But somehow, it all seemed to be falling apart from right underneath him as of late. Somehow, it was as though she had been steadily slipping further and further away since his fourteenth birthday, while he could only watch in turn.

Oh, she had sent her regards and a present (a pair of outrageous couerl fang earrings) that he could never wear but still had managed to manfully admire. Oh, she still sent him her letters and still regarded him with the sort of warm, open, unfettered affection he had never before experienced in his life. But she no longer spoke only of herself and Vaan in them or sent them quite as often. She no longer enquired with as much eagerness over what went on in Archades and whether he was being fed enough or whether he wanted her to drop by and perhaps introduce the miracle of a new invention known as 'pants' into his life.

More and more she spoke of other people within the parchment and even as the days went by and they both grew older, he could sense himself fading more and more from her life. And some, perhaps, would have said it was almost _mad_ of him to have taken the step of sending forth those with ears open enough to learn of all that was spoken of her, those with eyes wide enough to witness all that was done to her and those with gift enough to help him learn all that he needed to send her to win her over.

But all could be justified soon enough. And when she wrote back merely a few days later after his first present in utter delight at his thoughtfulness

_(And how, she had asked playfully, could he have possibly guessed she had wanted this so much and for so long? Was he psychic as well as telekinetic now?)_

he realized that he had finally found a way to fetter her to him in chains that she'd never even recognize.

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**Stage 3: Passion: She Dances for Another**

"You danced for Al-Cid," Larsa began and even now, hours after the fact, he still sounded sharp and resentful. "You danced for him wearing practically nothing and did not even stop to ask me beforehand." Until then, Penelo wouldn't have pegged him as the sort to have a mile-wide jealous streak. But the underlying sulk in his voice and the way he was currently twisting his arms around her suddenly put paid to _that_ thought.

Penelo restrained her laugh more for the sake of his pride than anything else. "Well, Larsa, it _was_ during the man's last night before his wedding. If he wanted me to put on a veil or two and dance for him, how could I have possibly disagreed?"

Larsa made a soft groan against her neck, his teeth rasping against the smooth flesh of her nape as his fingers played with her hair. "I do know you've very resourceful, Penelo. I'm sure you could have come up with _something_ to fend that old letch off."

Penelo could already feel her breath quickening as his hands wandered south. "You're the one with the smart mouth, Larsa, not me. What do _you_ think I should have said?"

"Ah," he whispered, and his fingers came to cup the curve of her high breasts, thumbs lightly playing against her nipples. He was still so young and comparatively inexperienced... but he was already so good at being a _tease_. "But there are so many excuses available. What would you like to hear first, dear?"

Hooking her fingers into his trousers, Penelo tugged hard and then smiled appreciatively at what she uncovered afterwards. Thank God for teenage stamina. "Whatever works best for you, Larsa. I'm willing to trust you on this one."

"In that case," he said, still oddly intent on the subject despite the erection he was already sliding over her slick, wet heat, "I've an idea. The next time he attempts anything, you ought to let His Highness know that you've a very ardent lover that could crush him entirely if he doesn't soon realize that you owe him no favors whatsoever."

"I'll remember all that next time," Penelo promised him dryly. And when he lifted her legs up to his shoulders once more, all noise other than their sighs and laughs ceased for the entire night.

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**Stage 4: Intimacy: The Things He Didn't Know.**

"Do you love me?" Whenever they fought, no matter how infrequently, Penelo always raged at him in a voice loud enough, _indiscreet_ enough, to make him wince at the thought of others overhearing them, even as he was tempted to raised his own in turn. "Do you want me? Did you ever stop to think of me, even once, for a single moment of your god-damned life?"

"Of _course_ I love you," he raged back-- and it _was_ rage that drove him, however much the aristocracy of Ivalice was fond of ascribing ice to the coloring of his blue-blood. It was not her hot rage but it was rage nonetheless-- cold and icy and unbelieving that she could ask something so _foolish_ right now. "Of _course_ I want you, of _course_ I think of you-- nearly every hour of my, as you put it, god-damned life. I've never loved any as I love you, Penelo and I highly doubt I ever shall. How can you possibly ever accuse me of… of telling you of these feelings as though they were naught but lies?"

"Then why--" And her voice held all the tears she'd never let herself weep, all the pain she'd never want him to fully see-- "--then why do you keep _deciding_ things for me? I love you too, Larsa! I love you so much it eats me up inside! But I can't-- I can't keep living like this, like I'm nothing at all but a little doll for you to-- to use whenever you like and toss aside otherwise!"

"I never--" And now _his_ voice was raising, despite himself, despite all of his renowned chivalry, despite all the sacrifices he'd make for her sake. "I have _never_ sought to treat you as such, Penelo. You know what you mean to me, all that you have always been to me. You're my heart, my fairy, my cuckoo. My life, my world, my sight--"

"I'm not any of those things," she whispered bleakly, and his hands involuntarily fisted at his sides. "I'm not your damsel in distress or your pretty dream maiden or… whatever you keep thinking I am, whatever you keep wanting me to be. I'm just a woman, just an ordinary woman, and I can't possibly fulfill _all_ your desires. And Larsa, if you can't understand that, then I don't see how I can possibly continue being in your life."

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**Stage 5: Commitment: Six Years, Tomorrow**.

"I love you," Larsa had whispered to her on the last night they had ever lain together, within the heart of his powers, though he could not have possibly known that at the time. If he had, perhaps he would have held on to her harder, fought for her more strongly, refused to let her rise from the twisted bed sheets had kept her his precious and his protected, his prisoner and his prostitute, for the past six years of their lives. But he did not yet understand that this would be their last night together, and so he had been nothing but pleased when she had wrapped her arms around his neck and let him kiss every inch of her body and planned her escape from him with every contented murmur he made against her smile.

There was no way, of course, no way he could have known of what wild thoughts ran through her mind as they coupled for the last time. For all the hounds he had sent to trail her in the years before, she wondered if he had ever _really_ known her-- known her not as the girl of his dreams or his fairy tale prize but as the very real and very broken person in his life.

No, of course, he couldn't have. If he had, he wouldn't have been so at ease as he nestled at her side. For all the calm that he projected, Penelo knew Larsa had claws and wings aplenty when it came to keeping what he loved nearby.

She loved him still and he frightened her so much and she knew she needed to _leave_, as soon as she could, before he found a way to ruin her life.

Love didn't make a difference in this case. He would marry another woman soon and keep her his pampered mistress if he could and find some way to chain her ever at his side.

She needed to _leave_ as soon as she could bring herself to do so. She needed to just... vanish from his sight.

"I love you," he had whispered in the early hours when he finally finished with her, in the last night of their mutual lives. And every kiss he gave her afterwards already tasted of things he did not yet understand: farewell, safe keeping, goodbye.


End file.
